with regard to inheritance, testimony, the blood money payable for her death, and compensation for her wounds.
It is reported from Muslim ibn Yasār that he said: “I said to Sa‘īd ibn al-Musayyab, ‘‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb freed the slave women who had borne children to their masters.’ He replied, ‘Was it ‘Umar who freed them? The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, freed them during the expedition against Banū al-Mustaliq. We took some Arab captives, desired women, and found abstinence difficult. We also wished to obtain ransom, so we wanted to practise withdrawal. I said, “Shall we practise withdrawal while the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is among us, before asking him?” We therefore asked him about it, and he said, “There is no harm in your not doing so. Every soul destined to exist until the Day of Resurrection will come into being.”’”
This is evidence that slave women’s becoming pregnant by their masters extinguishes their sale value and makes their sale unlawful. Had a slave woman’s pregnancy not extinguished her sale value, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would not have let them persist in this mistaken assumption and resort to a stratagem they did not need. He would have said to them: “What need have you for withdrawal? What do you fear from pregnancy?” This is clear.
Some scholars have challenged the strength of this evidence. They say that the men may have wanted to practise withdrawal merely for fear that the women would become pregnant through intercourse with them, preventing them from obtaining ransom for them until they gave birth. They were uneasy about withdrawal and refrained from practising it because they had heard the Jews living among them—who were People of the Book—describe it as a lesser form of burying an infant girl alive. They therefore asked the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, about it. He permitted it and informed them that every soul whose existence Allah had foreknown must inevitably come into being.
The first interpretation is more apparent: they wanted to practise withdrawal for fear of losing the ransom altogether, not merely for fear of being unable to obtain it promptly and having to postpone it until the women gave birth. The hadith states, “We also wished to obtain ransom.” Had they feared only losing the opportunity to obtain it promptly, they would have said, “We wished to obtain ransom promptly.” And Allah knows best.
Section
Once a slave woman has borne a child to her free master, it becomes unlawful for him to sell her, give her away, pledge her as security